"I wasn't surprised at all," answered Miss Waverley, and as Dacer was obliged to turn back to the telephone and take down some directions in writing she added, "He's been so absent-minded lately--since Elbridge--forgetting everything if I didn't follow him up." Dacer had finished telephoning. "Miss Hazlitt and I are going to be married," he said. "Get me a taxi, will you?" "Not now!" said Lita. He laughed. "No, not tonight," he answered. "I've got to see a patient in Washington Square. You'll go with me and wait in the cab. Then we'll dine somewhere--and not get you back until late. We'll test this theory of yours that parents can be reconciled through anxiety." "Oh, I couldn't!" said Lita. "It would drive my mother mad!" "Or to your father." "It would hurt her terribly." "I'm a surgeon. I know you've got to hurt people sometimes for their own good. My bag, please, Miss Waverley. My book--thanks. Good-by." A moment later they had gone, and Miss Waverley was left alone, tidying the office for the night. She shook her head. Her thought was: "And they expect us to respect them as if they were grown men." She sighed. "And the grown-up men aren't any better," she thought. In the meantime the pleasure of Mrs. Hazlitt's afternoon had been spoiled by the idea that Lita was sitting at home, waiting for her. Hers was a nature most open to self-reproach if no one reproached her. She returned about seven, eager to do her duty. She came running upstairs, calling to her daughter as she ran, and felt distinctly foolish when Freebody said coldly that Miss Hazlitt had not yet come in. "Hasn't come in?" cried Mrs. Hazlitt, and looked very severely at him over the banisters. Freebody had been with her long enough to have learned to withstand the implication that anything he told her was his fault. He moved about, putting the card tray straight. "Miss Hazlitt went out before you did, madam." "Alone?" "After the other gentleman left. Not Mr. Valentine." "There was no other gentleman but Mr. Valentine." Freebody, in his irritating way, would not argue with her. She had to begin all over again in order to elicit the facts--a gentleman had come to the house soon after Miss Hazlitt's arrival, and just before the arrival of Mr. Valentine. When he left, Miss Hazlitt had gone directly--Freebody would infer that she had been trying to catch up with him. "Did she?" asked Mrs. Hazlitt. "Ah, I couldn't say, madam." Mrs. Hazlitt was really alarmed. This was the other man--the real danger. By half past eight she was convinced of disaster. She called up her former husband at his club. He had gone out to dinner. How characteristic! No one in the club seemed to know where he was dining; but the telephone operator was ill-advised enough to say that if they did know they were not allowed to give out the information.